Love Makes It Happen

My father Sam said, “We’ll get a picnic on the way.” I was around seven. My half-brother Joel about five years older.

Joel and I jammed our cane poles and our father’s rod and reel into our aging Dodge Rambler’s trunk and slid into our seats. Sam turned the key in the ignition and pointed the car toward Rocky Comfort Creek.

A few miles down the road, my dad pulled into a shabby country store with rusty signs for RC Cola and two ancient, weathered gas pumps out front. We all hopped out to buy our picnic: a pack of Saltine crackers and a tin of sardines in ketchup sauce.

We paid for our food and followed a two-lane county road through woods and fields until we came to a small bridge spanning the creek. Baiting our hooks with red wigglers we stood fishing for bream from a mud…